Comments

That picture is amazing and tells such a tiny part of the story. For starters, all three podium teams are husband/wife. The winning team started this event years ago in a Miata and have worked their way up in ability and speed. Ironically that 650hp beast isn't the fastest car in the picture, but they were rock solid consistent and that paid off over the week. Nice people, great driving, everyone was happy for them.
The McLaren came to to the event still wearing paper plates. You can't quite see the zip ties holding the absurdly expensive carbon fiber bits together from a 100+ mph cone strike after Andy cooked a corner early in the week. You ever watch a guy zip tie his new McLaren back together? It's a sight to behold. Andy drove like Andy, clean, consistent and fast. Happy and helpful all week, classic Hollis.
The S2000 is a monster. I'm sure there will be legendary stories told about the car around One Lap campfires for years. It tried so very hard to break both itself and the couple driving it, but they always managed to keep themselves and the car together. Everyone knew they had the speed to win if the car held together, and managing to hold it together for a top three is one of the most epic things I've watched in One Lap.

At the slow end of the field we also had our battles and dramas and friendships and survival stories. You always see the winners photo and think "some day" but that's really the wrong way to come at it. Scroll down through the field and see a bunch of stock BMW's and Corvettes. Scroll farther and find the ratty 130k mile Civic, or the Acura TL, or the nearly stock Miata. If you do track days in a car that you can drive to the track, there is a 99% chance you already have the tool for the job. Come join us next year for one of the greatest automotive weeks in the country.

It will be a few years though, and I'm pretty sure the XJR - though a really nice street driver now - needs a LOT of work before it would be any sort of reliable on track. Something about 4000lbs, supercharger, auto trans, and brakes that fit under 16 inch wheels is telling me that cooling might be an issue.

I should probably start by taking the XJR to a track night in america.

I agree as well about the gross under reporting of a very large field over many miles and tracks. I would hope that GRM dedicates one or more people with LOTS of stories, photos and maybe even some videos to this event.

I'll be doing a long winded wrap up in hte next couple of days. It's such a massive event with a lot of things going on I needed a couple of days to decompress before trying to be coherent with my words. I also have a ton of pictures of race cars on track and not many of people. I need to work on that for the next one.

Always looking forward to Andy writing about the event. He provides a great perspective that is honestly hard to see from the back of the pack as we struggle with sleep and more driving in the dark. More than once I talked to him and he had gotten to the hotel over two hours before me. My five hours of sleep was his seven, and talking to Sleepyhead and the boys, it was four for them. We were trying to keep updated on social media through the event and even then it was a fire hose of trying to keep track of people, where they were, and whether we were in a position to come to the rescue when things happened. Every team has a story that could fill a book every year and there's no way to get it all. GRM does a great job.

this. We watched Andy and Anne leave NOLA at 12:25 IIRC. We still had 3 or 4 run groups before Tim even made it on track. Don't read that as complaining, just an observation. I can say though that John and I could have the car loaded in the time it took Tim to get out of his firesuit and helmet. I think our worst was around 7 minutes, best around 5.

The couple that drove the Miata had no HVAC at all aside from a bilge blower for defrost. They ran with the windows down for well over 3k miles. The S2k was in the same boat. They are hard as nails.

In contrast, once we determined that the Civic was mostly unbent after kissing the tire wall I IMMEDIATELY started calling parts stores to get the bits needed to fix our AC. I'm soft and I don't care who knows it.

This is sorta the thing I've built the Supra for... unintentionally. I love road trips. I love being able to drive a car to its (or more likely my) potential limits. I see so many badass Supras built over the years that get dragged around on a trailer everywhere, shined up or driven hard, briefly, then loaded back up on the trailer and dragged home.

That's the owner's choice and all, but some of my very best memories are of the caravan trips with the Arizona Supras group, up to the Vegas meet every year. So, my car, warts and all, first and foremost, MUST be a car worthy of a road trip.

Working out the gremlins, potential and actual, improving the ergonomics a bit (AC sure would be nice, too bad the oil pump takes up that spot now...), making sure the stereo can pump out some quality sounds, you know, the little stuff. Oh, and making sure the car doesn't try to light itself on fire, really need to go through the wiring again... Then get it out on track, setup and adjust things as necessary, and make sure it can handle track abuse as much as street driving.

Any reason to think a reliable, comfortable car with a power to weight ratio somewhere in the 6 lbs / hp range might not have a good time? Also, I'm more familiar with the rules of Hod Rod's Power Tour, as far as logistics are concerned. Similar story as far as spare tires and whatnot go?

About the only thing that might put me at a disadvantage is that I'd have at least 1000, more likely 1500 miles, just to get to the starting line in the first place, being on the far western side of Wyoming...

I start from Houston and it's 1100 miles to South Bend. My co-driver has to drive 200 miles to pick me up, so he's at 1300. Tire rules are pretty simple. You run the same four tires all week, 200tw or better and they have to come from Tire Rack. You are allowed one spare per tire size on the car (to allow for staggered setups) but you can't swap tires without Brock's permission. If you get a flat you need to show the dead carcass to Brock or you get booted. Talking to people this year there was one single spare used and that was due to hitting a wall and destroying the wheel/tire. Tires lasting all week isn't really a problem unless you're severely under-tired for the weight of the car or are lacking camber or something like that.

But yes, come join us, Make sure you have some track time before hand and sign up. Best. Road. Trip. Ever.

I think one of the significantly under-reported stories was that we had 5 women drivers making competition runs this year. Actually, it could have been more... because I don't know if any of the women with the Toyota team turned times, nor about some of the Corvettes. Still, that makes at least 30% of the 15 women officially listed on entries as having recorded times.

although, it's tough to track that, since OneLap doesn't record driver identity with session times (and really has no reason or capacity to do so, afaik). so, the onus is on us... the competitors... to note and observe it.

In some ways I'm encouraged by this; and in others it shows how far there still is to go.